If you’re already a fan of my Sabina Kane series, you might be aware that I wrote a two novellas and a short story set in Sabina’s universe. Up until now, those stories have only been available in e-book and distribution was limited so fans in some countries couldn’t read them. I also know that some of my Sabina fans simply prefer print books. So I came up with the idea of creating a collection that combines all the Sabina Kane short fiction into one print-only volume.

But that’s not all! I also decided to throw in a Kate Prospero story. Fire Water is a prequel novella to my Prospero’s War series. It’s a stand-alone story that’s about one of Kate’s first cases as a rookie cop. It also tells the story of how Kate met Baba. If you haven’t tried my Kate Prospero series yet, this is a great introduction. If you’re already a fan of the Prospero’s War series, this is a must read.

All of these stories are still available separately in ebook, but you can only get all four stories together in this special print edition bound in a gorgeous matte cover.

About The Chosen Ones:

Sabina Kane is one of the most infamous and beloved heroines in the Urban Fantasy genre. This special collection of short fiction is a must-have for any fan of the series, and a must-read for any fan of the genre.

Fool’s Gold
In the 1970s, Sabina Kane was a rookie assassin looking for first big kill. But when the time comes to prove her skills to the Dominae, she finds herself shadowing Slade Corbin, a more experienced assassin with a huge chip on his shoulder. Together, they must track down a blackmailer who’s threatening to expose the existence of vampires to the world.

Violet Tendencies
Former assassin Sabina Kane heads to Los Angeles to find her kidnapped sister. Helping her on the mission are her hot mage partner, her Mischief demon minion, and a Vanity demon named Valva. The problem? She’s got to figure out how to find her sister without letting her enemies know she’s back in town. But Sabina learns the hard way that Vanity demons don’t know the meaning of the phrase “low profile.”

Rusted Veins
Halloween in New Orleans is usually a treat. But for Sabina Kane and the rest of Team Awesome, this year’s celebration is full of tricks. A mage has gone missing and it’s up to Sabina and the gang to find her. The problem? The missing mage is one of Adam Lazarus’s old flames, and having her show up in their lives is giving Sabina heartburn. Luckily for Adam’s ex, but unlucky for her kidnappers, Sabina Kane isn’t easily spooked.

Includes Bonus Prospero’s War Novella: Fire Water

Buy The Chosen Ones now!

Please note: You will be able to buy this from B&N, Indiebound and other online retailers in a few weeks. It takes time for the book to show up on other stores’ sites. I will post in my newsletter and on this site once they’re available. Thanks for your patience!

Want to stay up-to-date on all the latest news on my books, signings, and classes? I send my newsletter out once a month. Each issue includes news, a recipe from my kitchen, a Fur Fan of the Month, and insider tips and contests only available to subscribers.

Big news! The International Vampire Film & Art Festival has shortlisted Children of Ashfor their Golden Stake award. The festival will take place in May in Transylvania. At this point, I am trying to determine whether I’ll be able to attend the festival, but at a minimum, I’ll be doing a Skyped interview and reading. Either way, I am so thrilled to see this book honored among some of the best vampire fiction of 2016!

Here’s what the critics have said about Children of Ash

“This is one of the very best vampire series that I’ve ever read: tonally comparable to Cronin’s Passage trilogy, Hogan and del Toro’s Strain trilogy, and Matheson’s I am Legend. Utterly readable.” -Paul Goat Allen

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and a happy New Year. I’m very excited about 2017 and I have some fun projects in the works for my readers. I can’t talk about the plans yet, but trust that I’m working on some new stories that should make you very happy.

Some of you might know that in 2016 I graduated with my MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University. I got the degree, in part, because I wanted to teach writing. It’s been a dream of mine for a long time to have a writers’ workshop where I share what I know about the craft, and I’ve been laying groundwork for a while to make it a reality.

One of my big goals for 2017 is to host a writing retreat. Then, in December, I was approached by a company that sells USB drives for companies to use as swag. I realized it was the perfect sort of giveaway to hand out at my writing workshops. Luckily, I’d just had a logo created for my teaching business that I could put on them, too. This is what you call synchronicity, friends. I am now the owner of these really awesome flash drives.

Aren’t they cute? If you can’t tell, they’re little wooden books! The logo is sort of hard to see, too, but in person they look amazing. Thanks to my stalwart marketing assistant, Chelsea Klepfer, for designing the logo!

Now I basically have to plan a writing workshop. I know it’s a backward way to motivate myself, but that’s pretty much how I roll. If you’re interested in taking a workshop with me or attending a retreat, definitely sign up for my newsletter because I’ll be posting information for singing up there. My goal right now is to have a retreat in the fall and possible also host an online class this year, as well. Stay tuned !

Also, a quick thanks to USB Memory Direct for the custom drives they sent me. They were a pleasure to work with, and I’ll definitely be ordering more.

As a special holiday treat, I’ve made the first story in my Meridian Six series free from Dec. 14-16!

“A masterful fusion of post-apocalyptic fiction, dark fantasy, and subtle social commentary, this is, simply put, the best self-published vampire story I have read in my 20 years of reviewing. And it’s just the beginning of a series that has the potential to change the landscape of genre fiction.” -Paul Goat Allen, Blue Ink Reviews

This morning, several authors are hanging out at Reddit doing an Ask You Anything to benefit the Worldbuilders charity. If you aren’t familiar with Worldbuilders, it was created by Patrick Rothfuss and raises money for Heifer International. You can also go to their site and bid on amazing special signed editions of books from your favorite authors. There are several signed editions of my foreign editions and audio books available there. After you check it out, I hope you’ll stop by Reddit to chat about books with me!

Life has been pretty crazy lately. There have been some family things going on that require me to be away from my writing desk more often than I’d like. I promised my agent pages on a new project next week, so I’ve been a little stressed about getting it all done. Then I remembered that there is more than one way to get a story written.

Enter: Dictation.

I read a couple of posts and a book by authors who swear by dictation as a method for drafting a novel. They pretty much all recommended Dragon for dictation, but a quick search told me the program is $300. I have text-to-speech (TTS) on my Mac (just open any document or program and fit the “function” key twice), and I can’t imagine the Dragon software is 300X better. I did, however, download the free Dragon app for my phone for dictating on the fly.

Here’s what I’ve been doing. While I’m out running errands or if an idea comes to me while I’m folding laundry, I pick up the phone, speak into the app and then email it to myself. Now, the resulting document is a mess. First, the app doesn’t register punctation, so it’s really a string of words without any formatting. But the beauty of this is that once I’m back at my computer, I take those raw words, add the punctuation, and flesh out the scene. In essence, the dictation draft, messy as it may be, allows me to not face a blank page.

We’ve all been there, right? We get a fresh cup of coffee, turn off the internet, pull up our word processing program of choice, and then stare at the blinking cursor of death. It’s hypnotic, that cursor. It taunts and dares us to try to be brilliant. It’s daunting, y’all.

But if you can come to a page that already has some raw material on it, it somehow feels more manageable. “I don’t have to create anything from scratch, I just have to fix these words.”

A few benefits of this method include:

You talk faster than you write, so you can get a lot of words down quickly.

Speaking your story might make it easier to access your authentic voice.

Because your goal is just to get ideas and words down, it’s easier to ignore the internal editor.

Dictation might not be for everyone. It takes some getting used to to speak your story instead of type it. If it just doesn’t work for you, there’s another option. I have a new obsession for fountain pens. I have cheap ones and expensive ones (the cheap ones are actually my preference), and they make writing by hand a pleasure. In the same spirit of just getting things down, I like to sit down and write a quick scene on paper. Often it’s just a page or two of dialogue. There’s something freeing about putting it on paper. “I’m just jotting down some notes,” I say. “There’s nothing here that can’t be changed.”

Once I have a couple of pages, I either type the scene into Scrivener or I’ll speak it using the TTS function on my Mac. Again, the goal here is just to get something on the page that I can go back and flesh out. The bonus is that it’s easier for me to carry a pen and a notebook in my purse than to lug around my laptop. The benefits of this method are pretty similar to the dictation method, but you don’t have to worry about messing with technology you’ve never used before or the pesky problem of dictation programs inaccuracies.

My point here is that sometimes we have to get creative and work smarter. There is no writing police force who will arrest you if you speak your story instead of type it. You don’t have to sit in front of a computer for the work to count. Progress is more important that perfection, especially in the drafting phase.

If you’re feeling stuck, try to speak your story. Or pull out your favorite pen and jot down your scene. You’ve not nothing to lose but your resistance.